Handouts from Westminster combined with greater political independence have
led to a loss of original thinking

Wales has a habit of tolerating the clichés that attach themselves so readily to its history and culture. The land of Dylan Thomas, of mellifluous song and castle splendour, is associated with a national habit of radicalism in both politics and religion. Cultural clichés are spawned by traditions that have grown wan but once were vital. And the dissenting tendency did inform Welsh attitudes for a long time. But in the late 20th century, Welsh dissent waned.

The loss of originality is partly a reflection of de-industrialisation in the country’s south-east and north-east. Poetry composed in the Welsh language has a history that extends back to the early 7th century. But the experiences that have influenced most modern views of what it means to be Welsh emerged from its industrial areas. Agricultural workers migrated from the west to dynamic centres such as Merthyr and the Rhondda, while in the north it was the slate quarries that dominated the industrial scene.

New jobs and the escape from rural poverty gave this workforce disposable incomes, and many acquired a taste for ideas. Syndicalism, the Co-operative movement and a distinctly communitarian view of socialism: these supplied the Welsh labour movement with its lingua franca. But the political dominance of Labour in the post-1945 world amounted to an exercise in state bureaucracy, and the hegemonic nature of public-service Wales has had a debilitating cultural impact.

Government expenditure now accounts for two-thirds of the country’s national income – a point at which Welsh dependence on the Treasury acquires a dimension that is neocolonial. The devolutionary settlement of the late Nineties gave Wales the appearance of greater autonomy, but the transfer of an ability to spend other people’s money has had an unfortunate effect. Greater political independence, if it is to be a healthy development, ought to be associated with intellectual originality. But Wales’s devolutionary world remains mired in a set of attitudes that see nothing wrong with centralised economic planning, however ineffective, and the steady extension of subsidies, however ruinous of enterprise.

A devolution dividend should have been delivered by now – 15 years after the brave new dispensation. But most indices are bleak in terms of joblessness, secondary school results and of course the NHS, where the Welsh passion for the committee, given new life by devolution, has ensured a bureaucratic sclerosis.

European regions from Silesia to the Ruhr have had to endure the death of heavy industry while coming out on the other side in reasonable shape. Wales’s experience of losing so much while gaining so little is one that requires some explanation. And it is a peculiar set of beliefs about “culture” that is partly to blame.

Wales has a ruling class whose composition is drawn from the major political parties. And its self-congratulatory talk of being “radical” is framed by nostalgia rather than contemporary need. It may be difficult to justify state socialism in explicit terms these days but “community values” can work as a kind of synonym. Indeed, Cymry has its origins as a term for those who band together.

The fact that this self-ascription originated among 7th-century warriors on the run need not discomfit the Welsh rhetorician of today who wants to establish “community” as an unique national value. Schools and hospitals therefore exist primarily to serve “local communities” – a convenient abstraction which transcends duties of care to individual patients, parents and pupils.

Similarly, the derelict condition of the South Wales valley towns is supposedly alleviated by the existence of “community centres”. Social relationships are real enough as a source of strength and support. But enjoyment of others’ company is not a character trait that is unique to the Welsh condition, and few of my compatriots entertain that fantasy.

A tolerant race has long endured its rulers’ verbiage. Leanne Wood, the leader of Plaid Cymru, even said that a vote for Ukip was somehow a betrayal of the values that are uniquely Welsh. Perhaps the fact that Ukip came to within a few thousand votes of topping the poll in Wales’s European elections may prompt some really radical revisions and a true subversion of the power of the cultural cliché.

'Emperor of the West: Charlemagne and the Carolingian Empire’ by Hywel Williams is published by Quercus